ABSTRACT
This volume comprises a detailed examination of the relationship between archaeology and a particular group of computer-based applications. We use the term ‘spatial technologies’ to mean any technology concerned with the acquisition, storage or manipulation of spatial information, but by far the most widespread of these are Geographic, or Geographical, Information Systems, almost exclusively referred to by the acronym GIS. In less than ten years, GIS have progressed from exotic experimental tools, requiring costly workstations and only available to a few specialist researchers, to widely available technological platforms for the routine analysis of spatial information. Archaeology, in common with all disciplines concerned with the interpretation of geographically located material, has witnessed an unprecedented transformation of the methodological tools it uses for spatial records and analysis. Whereas a decade ago few grant-giving bodies or cultural resource managers would have recognised the term GIS, most would now be surprised to see a regional archaeological project that did not claim to utilise it.
